Robert Mackey of the Guardian: “Donald Trump promoted the false claim that Barack Obama has earned $40m in 'royalties linked to Obamacare' in a post to his 11 million followers on Truth Social on Sunday. The fictional claim that the former US president receives royalty payments for the use of his name to refer to the Affordable Care Act, which he signed into law in 2010, has been repeatedly debunked since at least 2017, when it was featured on America’s Last Line of Defense, a satirical website that produces fake news reports designed to generate engagement from outraged conservatives.... On Sunday morning, Trump posted a screenshot of an earlier post with an image of Obama and the text: 'BREAKING: DOGE halted a yearly payment of $2.5 million to Barack Obama for “royalties linked to Obamacare.” He’s been collecting it since 2010, for a total of $40 million in taxpayer dollars.'... A White House spokesperson refused to answer questions about whether the president was aware that the report he shared was fictional, or was concerned about misleading his followers, replying instead with a broadside against Obama....” Thanks to Akhilleus, who linked to this report in a comment titled, “He IS as stupid as you think.” ~~~
Everyone says he is crazy – which maybe he is – but the scarier thing about him is that he is stupid. You do not know anyone as stupid as Donald Trump. You just don’t. -- Fran Lebowitz, ca. March 2018 (thanks to Patrick for the link)
⭐Natasha Bertrand of CNN: “The United Kingdom is no longer sharing intelligence with the US about suspected drug trafficking vessels in the Caribbean because it does not want to be complicit in US military strikes and believes the attacks are illegal.... The UK’s decision marks a significant break from its closest ally and intelligence sharing partner and underscores the growing skepticism over the legality of the US military’s campaign around Latin America. For years, the UK, which controls a number of territories in the Caribbean where it bases intelligence assets, has helped the US locate vessels suspected of carrying drugs so that the US Coast Guard could interdict them, the sources said. That meant the ships would be stopped, boarded, its crew detained, and drugs seized.... The intelligence pause began over a month ago, sources said.”
Jane Timm of NBC News: "A Utah judge late Monday night rejected new congressional district lines drawn by Republican state lawmakers, instead approving a map with a solidly Democratic seat ahead of next year's midterm elections. The ruling is a major blow for Republicans, who had designed a map to protect the state’s all-GOP congressional delegation. And it gives Democrats a boost as they attempt to respond to Republicans’ mid-decade redistricting efforts around the country and win control of the House in 2026.... Utah District Court Judge Dianna Gibson tossed that map in favor of one suggested by the plaintiffs in the case. She concluded that Republicans had impermissibly considered political data and gerrymandered in favor of their own party."
~~~~~~~~~~
Marie: Something to Remember. If this continuing resolution passes the house and if Trump signs it, we get to do this all over again in January. ~~~
~~~ Catie Edmondson of the New York Times: “The Senate passed legislation on Monday night to end the nation’s longest government shutdown, after a critical splinter group of Democrats joined with Republicans and backed a spending package that omitted the chief concession their party had spent weeks demanding. The 60-to-40 vote, on Day 41 of the shutdown, signaled a break in the gridlock that has shuttered the government for weeks, leaving hundreds of thousands of federal workers furloughed, millions of Americans at risk of losing food assistance and millions more facing air-travel disruptions. The measure goes next to the House, which is expected to take it up no sooner than Wednesday and where the small Republican margin of control and intense Democratic opposition could make for a close vote. ... [Donald] Trump has indicated that he will sign it.” Politico's story is here. ~~~
~~~ Oh, and This: Devlin Barrett of the New York Times: Tucked into the bill is a provision that “would create a wide legal avenue for senators to sue for as much as half a million dollars each when federal investigators search their phone records without notifying them. The provision ... appears to immediately allow for eight G.O.P. senators to sue the government over their phone records being seized in the course of the investigation by Jack Smith, the former special counsel, into the riot at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. The provision would make it a violation of the law to not notify a senator if their phone records or other metadata was taken from a service provider like a phone company. There are some exceptions, such as 60-day delays in notification if the senator is considered the target of an investigation.... The bill would also sharply limit the way the government could resist such a claim, taking away any government claims of qualified or sovereign immunity to fight a lawsuit over the issue.... It was unclear which Republican lawmaker added the language on phone searches to the bill.” ~~~
~~~ Hailey Fuchs of Politico: “That legislative language came directly from Senate Majority Leader John Thune.... 'Leader Thune inserted that in the bill to provide real teeth to the prohibition on the Department of Justice targeting senators,' [Sen. Ted] Cruz said [in a Monday evening interview].” ~~~
~~~ Marie: Wouldn't it have been easier if they ordered Treasury to send each of them $500K checks with the "For" line reading, "Consolation Prize for Failing to Overturn Presidential* Election"?
This bill doesn’t do anything to arrest the health care catastrophe, nor does it constrain in any meaningful way President Trump’s illegality. I think the voters were pretty clear on Tuesday night what they wanted Congress to do, and more specifically, what they wanted Democrats to do, and I am really saddened that we didn’t listen to them. -- Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) (via Politico, linked below) ~~~
~~~ Reid Epstein of the New York Times: “As eight Democratic-aligned senators with an average age of about 70 voted with Republicans to end the 40-day government shutdown without the health care concessions Democrats had demanded, the party again convulsed with two questions that have long racked its members: How old is too old and how vigorously should they fight Republicans?... The age issue is likely to keep flaring up. Senator Chuck Schumer’s top three midterm recruits are Janet Mills, 77, in Maine; Sherrod Brown, 73, in Ohio; and Roy Cooper, 68, in North Carolina.... Anger from across the party erupted, and elected Democrats found themselves navigating new calls for Senator Chuck Schumer to be ousted as minority leader.... Feeding the discontent are memories of the last shutdown fight in March, when Schumer led Senate Democrats to make a deal with Republicans to keep the government open.” Politico's story is here. An NBC News story is here. ~~~
~~~ Reid Epstein of the New York Times: Jeanne Shaheen's leading role in the defection has caused a polite family squabble. Shaheen's daughter Stefany is running for a New Hampshire Congressional seat. Other candidates for the open seat were less polite. ~~~
~~~ BUT "It Could Have Been Much Shorter." Stephen Neukam & Hans Nichols of Axios: "As Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer publicly battled Republicans over the government shutdown, he was privately cajoling a group of moderates not to fold before November.... Two weeks into the shutdown, a group of moderates told Schumer they were ready to vote to open the government, according to three sources.... But Schumer persuaded the moderates to hold out until at least the beginning of November, when open enrollment for the Affordable Care Act began. In mid-October, he made it clear to his entire caucus that he was likely to come out against the emerging bipartisan deal that a group of moderate senators were pushing. ~~~
~~~ AND There's This. Heather Cox Richardson: "... Donald J. Trump did not want the shutdown to end this way. He was trying to use the pain he was inflicting on the American people to force Republican senators to end the filibuster and pass a series of measures that would essentially have made him a dictator. The Republican senators ... chose a way out of the shutdown fight that did not support Trump’s ambitions. After nine months in which they appeared to do his bidding, that’s an interesting development." ~~~
~~~ AND Paul Krugman realizes that Trump is totally confused by all of this. It isn't only that he doesn't understand Obamacare; he doesn't even understand how insurance works. “Oh, and it’s especially rich to see Trump take a break from boasting about his new gold-and-marble bathrooms to pretend to hate 'money sucking Insurance Companies.'” Krugman thinks Republicans' cruelty still will be their downfall. ~~~
~~~ MB: I'm less convinced than Krugman. It's been obvious for a century that cruelty and indifference are what drive the GOP. They are all Tom & Daisy Buchanan. Yet millions of Americans keep voting for them; those Americans keep approving of policies rooted in cruelty and indifference; those Americans believe that everyone -- and somehow everyone includes children, the elderly and the infirm -- should pull themselves up by their bootstraps and pull their own weight and rugged individualism and welfare queens and Obamaphones and too many poor people have refrigerators and whatever other cliches you can think of. I hope Krugman is right. I hope the great unwashed are waking up again, as so many did in the Great Depression. We'll find out.
Here are a few observations made yesterday: ~~~
~~~ Josh Marshall of TPM is optimistic about the Democrats' "fight" on the shutdown. He makes several points, none of which I find especially convincing, but I'll let him speak for himself. In general, he's a very savvy guy. (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~
~~~ Steve M. is kind of on the same page as Marshall: "... eight moderates thought it wasn't worth continuing the fight. And that's where the battle lines are drawn in the Democratic Party now: between fighters and cavers. Democratic voters forced Democrats to fight this long and will demand fighters in the future. This is a huge loss, but maybe the days of get-along-to-go-along Democrats are numbered." (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~
~~~ Brian Beutler has 16 thoughts on the Democrats' cave, but the post is subscriber-firewalled, so only six of them are readable. Still, they're smart thoughts. (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~
~~~ Marie: As I wrote yesterday, "As far as I can tell, the Democrats who caved did so for no good reason and for not a single concession worth mentioning. Steve Benen of MSNBC seems to agree with that, in principle. I think they did it for the same reason a lot of unserious people do things: "because that's what we've always done." ~~~
~~~ Update. Stephen Groves of the AP tracks down the excuses the eight Democratic defectors gave for abandoning the fight to preserve semi-affordable health insurance for millions of Americans. ~~~
~~~ Marie: MEANWHILE, Marcie Jones notices, "Trump can't wait for America to starve or go broke on healthcare." And a lot of other reasons to ask why my senators, Quisling & Chamberlain, caved. ~~~
~~~ Mark Berman & Justin Jouvenal of the Washington Post: “The Trump administration on Monday again asked the Supreme Court to block lower-court decisions requiring it to pay full food assistance benefits to about 42 million Americans who rely on the nation’s largest anti-hunger program. The request marked the second time in a few days that Trump officials have urged the justices to intervene in a court battle over Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) payments and prevent other judges from forcing the administration to fully fund benefits for November.... Most of the people relying on SNAP are children, the elderly or disabled adults.” ~~~
~~~ A Message from Your President*. Zoe Richards of NBC News: “... Donald Trump on Monday reiterated criticism of air traffic controllers who have been absent during parts of the record-long government shutdown, when they’re required to work without pay.... He said last month that 'it depends who we’re talking about,' when asked whether he supported back pay for federal employees, and that there 'are some people that really don’t deserve to be taken care of, and we’ll take care of them in a different way.' The Trump administration has also explored ways to prevent furloughed workers from getting back pay.... Trump ... urged air traffic controllers in a social media post earlier [Monday] to return to work.... Trump threatened to dock the pay of those who didn’t report to work, while saying that he would recommend $10,000 bonuses for those who hadn’t been absent during the shutdown. 'For those that did nothing but complain, and took time off, even though everyone knew they would be paid, IN FULL, shortly into the future, I am NOT HAPPY WITH YOU,' Trump wrote on Truth Social.” ~~~
~~~ That tweet from Trump is worse than Richards lets on. Heather Cox Richardson cites more of it in her post linked above: “I am NOT HAPPY WITH YOU. You didn’t step up to help the U.S.A. against the FAKE DEMOCRAT ATTACK that was only meant to hurt our Country. You will have a negative mark, at least in my mind, against your record. If you want to leave service in the near future, please do not hesitate to do so, with NO payment or severance of any kind! You will be quickly replaced by true Patriots, who will do a better job….”
~~~ Luke Broadwater of the New York Times: “The government shutdown ... [is] ... perhaps the most punishing [in history], in part because ... [Donald] Trump has taken actions no previous administration ever took during a shutdown.... Over the past six weeks, the Trump administration cut food stamps for millions of low-income Americans. It tried to fire thousands of government workers and withhold back pay from others, while freezing or canceling money for projects in Democratic-led states. It remains to be seen whether there will be a political price to pay for Mr. Trump or his party, with polls showing that voters generally blamed Republicans more for the shutdown. But for now, the tactics appear to have worked.... The deal [the eight Democratic defectors] voted for on Monday reverses much of the pain Mr. Trump inflicted.”
~~~ Marie: Once again we see that “the art of the deal” is simple: be a brutal narcissist who enjoys inflicting punishment on innocent children & needy adults. Trump has the nuanced character of a B-movie cartoon villain who will slit the throat of the ingenue/heroine in his grasp if the hero doesn't drop his gun. ~~~
~~~ Zach Montague of the New York Times: “A coalition of clean energy groups and the city of St. Paul sued the Trump administration on Monday, challenging what they described as nakedly partisan funding cuts during the government shutdown that wiped out around $7.5 billion for projects in Democratic-led states. The lawsuit, which names the White House budget director, Russell T. Vought, as a main defendant, claims that the Trump administration took advantage of the lapse in government funding in October to slash energy programs in states where voters have supported Democrats.”
Abbie VanSickle of the New York Times: Donald “Trump asked the Supreme Court on Monday to overturn a $5 million civil judgment that he had sexually abused and defamed the writer E. Jean Carroll. In the petition, lawyers for Mr. Trump claimed that the assertions against him were 'implausible' and 'unsubstantiated' and argued that the trial court had erred in a 'series of indefensible evidentiary rulings.'... Last year, a panel of judges for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit had upheld the jury’s verdict and $5 million judgment against him.... In June, the appeals court rejected a request by Mr. Trump’s lawyers that the full court review the case.” The Hill's story is here.
Kenneth Vogel of the New York Times: Donald “Trump quietly pardoned the husband of Representative Diana Harshbarger, Republican of Tennessee, last week amid a string of clemency grants to allies. In 2013, Robert Harshbarger Jr., a licensed pharmacist at the time, pleaded guilty to health care fraud and distributing a misbranded drug, in this case kidney medications, some of which came from China, that were not approved for the purpose by the Food and Drug Administration. Ms. Harshbarger, also a pharmacist, was a corporate officer and agent for American Inhalation Medication Specialists, the company through which her husband sold the drugs.... During her first successful congressional campaign in 2020, she denied to local media that she had any involvement with the company.... The pardon, which was not publicly announced by the White House, was posted on the website of the Justice Department’s office of the pardon attorney on Monday. It was the latest use of the unfettered presidential clemency power by Mr. Trump to reward allies and make political points, including casting prosecutions of his supporters as corrupt witch hunts.” ~~~
~~~ Travis Gettys of the Raw Story: "A serial criminal avoided prison for child sex offenses thanks to ... Donald Trump's pardon for his violent role in the Jan. 6 insurrection. Andrew Taake pleaded guilty in September to soliciting what he believed was a 15-year-old girl for sex, but The Daily Beast reported the 37-year-old was able to stay out of prison for the sex offense due to the 'credit' he was given for time served behind bars for attacking a police office during the U.S. Capitol riot." ~~~
~~~ Philip Marcelo & Michael Sisak of the AP: “A convicted drug dealer who had been granted clemency by ... Donald Trump was sent back to federal prison on Monday for violating the terms of his release after being charged with several new crimes. Jonathan Braun was sentenced to 27 months behind bars. The Long Island man had been accused of swinging an IV pole at a hospital nurse and threatening to kill her, screaming at a member of his synagogue, groping his family’s nanny and evading bridge tolls.... Braun had been a high-ranking member of an international group that smuggled more than 100,000 kilograms (220,460 pounds) of marijuana from Canada into the United States, federal prosecutors said at the time.” ~~~
~~~ Marie: I couldn't recall why Trump commuted Braun's sentence, but I had a vague recollection it was because Braun had "connections" to Trump. Why, yes he did, according to this August 2024 New York Times story: “In the final months of the Trump administration, while Mr. Braun was in a federal prison in New York State, Mr. Braun’s family made contact with the father of Jared Kushner, Mr. Trump’s son-in-law and senior White House adviser, to try to get a commutation request before Mr. Trump. Mr. Kushner’s White House office ultimately drafted the language used in the news release to announce the commutation of Mr. Braun and others.... The commutation also dealt a major blow to an ambitious criminal investigation being conducted by the U.S. attorney’s office in Manhattan....” Jared's dad Charles, if you'll recall, is now Ambassador to France & Monaco. Before Trump appointed him to those posts, he pardoned Charles, who served time for "illegal campaign contributions, tax evasion, and witness tampering. I guess the witness-tampering part is where "Kushner hired a prostitute to seduce his brother-in-law, arranging to record a sexual encounter between the two and send the tape to his sister" This is our government today. ~~~
~~~ Actually, It's Worse. Kyle Cheney & Josh Gerstein of Politico: “... Donald Trump’s adversaries say his sweeping pardon for dozens of alleged co-conspirators in the plot to subvert the 2020 election sent an unmistakable signal: If you do it again, I’ll protect you. The extraordinarily broad pardon, signed Friday but revealed Sunday night, has little substantive effect for its recipients. Trump can pardon only federal crimes, and his administration had already pulled the plug on any lingering investigations stemming from the 2020 election. Some of the clemency recipients are still facing state-level criminal charges in Arizona, Georgia, Nevada and Wisconsin — though some Trump allies argue the pardons could derail those cases. The mass pardon — the first in history to cover people accused of criminally conspiring with the president who issued it — comes as Trump continues to stoke false claims about rampant cheating by Democrats and sow doubts about the integrity of future elections....
“Trump is sending a message to his supporters that if you commit a crime in the name of Donald Trump, I’ve got your back,” said Liz Oyer, the former U.S. pardon attorney, whose successor Ed Martin announced the sweeping clemency on X and released a 15-page statement explaining the move. Oyer said the pardon was written so broadly that it could apply to countless people who aided Trump’s effort to stay in power despite losing the 2020 election — and the vaguely worded document permits Martin and other Justice Department officials to decide for themselves who receives a pardon certificate. 'That’s just not how pardon paperwork is written,' Oyer said.” ~~~
~~~ Marie: Oyer appeared on Rachel Maddow's show last night, and the two agreed that this pardon could cover Ed Martin himself, who was involved in promoting the 2020 election conspiracy. ~~~
~~~ MEANWHILE, the flip side of the coin -- vindictive prosecutions against Trump's perceived "enemies" -- continues: ~~~
~~~ Vaughn Hillyard & of MSNBC: “The U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Florida ... Jason Reding Quiñones ... called a division-wide meeting on Monday afternoon, following the resignations of two prosecutors who were asked to take part in a vast 'conspiracy' investigation into former intelligence and law enforcement officials.... [A] source said it is unusual for an office’s top prosecutor to convene such a gathering.... The source ... said that one of the prosecutors resigned because they 'felt like there was something they could not take part in because it would violate their ethical responsibilities.'...
“The Justice Department approved at least 30 subpoenas on Friday, including for [former CIA Director John] Brennan and former FBI officials Peter Strzok and Lisa Page. The official who signed at least some of the subpoenas is Executive Assistant United States Attorney Manolo Reboso.... The SDFL appears to have bypassed what multiple legal experts told MSNBC is standard protocol for its issuance of subpoenas, turning to a member of leadership to sign off on some of them, instead of a line prosecutor assigned to investigate the case.”
Michael Shear of the New York Times: Donald “Trump on Monday threatened to sue the BBC for $1 billion for a documentary that his lawyer claimed included 'malicious, disparaging' edits to a speech Mr. Trump delivered on Jan. 6, 2021. The legal threat came in a letter from Alejandro Brito, one of Mr. Trump’s lawyers, to the BBC that was obtained by The New York Times. The letter demanded a full retraction of the documentary, an apology and what his lawyers said would be payments that 'appropriately compensate President Trump for the harm caused.' The letter said that if those demands were not met, 'President Trump will be left with no alternative but to enforce his legal and equitable rights, all of which are expressly reserved and are not waived, including by filing legal action for no less than $1,000,000,000 (One Billion Dollars) in damages.'” Related story linked yesterday. (Also linked yesterday.)
Christina Goldbaum & Zolan Kanno-Youngs of the New York Times: Donald “Trump waived sanctions on Syria on Monday after meeting with President Ahmed al-Shara at the White House, the latest effort to throw his support behind the former rebel leader who had once been designated a terrorist by the United States, with a $10 million bounty on his head. It was Mr. al-Shara’s first visit to the U.S. capital since coming to power and the first by any Syrian head of state to the White House.... Syria also agreed to join a global coalition to defeat the Islamic State, which remains active in Syria, according to a Trump administration official.... But there were signs on Monday of the administration’s apprehension over a leader that the United States once considered to have ties to a terrorist group. Mr. al-Shara was not given the usual pomp and circumstance that comes with a foreign leader visiting the White House.”
Megan Liscomb of BuzzFeed, republished by Yahoo! News: "Over the weekend, Republican Senator Markwayne Mullin shared photos of himself 'working through the weekend' alongside ... Donald Trump in the Oval Office." Bluesky users studied the photos & took issue with Mullins' assertion. MB: Read on down through the Bluesky commentary. All very strange, some eerie/creepy.
Hegseth Announces More War Crimes. Eric Schmitt, et al., of the New York Times: “The U.S. military killed six people on Sunday in two more strikes on boats suspected of smuggling drugs in the eastern Pacific Ocean, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced on Monday. The latest strikes raised the death toll in the campaign to 76 people in 19 attacks in the Pacific and the Caribbean Sea since early September. In a post on social media, Mr. Hegseth cited 'intelligence' and included two short video clips of the bombings of two separate boats that he said were traveling 'along a known narco-trafficking transit route inthe Eastern Pacific.'” (Also linked yesterday.)
Adam Goldman of the New York Times: FBI Director Kash Patel made a promise to Ken McCallum, head of the U.K.'s M15, that the FBI would retain an agent in London who had a particular technological expertise the Brits needed to monitor a new Chinese embassy to be built near the Tower of London. Patel promptly broke his promise & eliminated the London position. “The episode has contributed to concerns among intelligence allies that Kash Patel, brash and partisan, is also unpredictable and even unreliable.... Mr. Patel’s inexperience, his dismissals of top F.B.I. officials and his shift of bureau resources from thwarting spies and terrorism have heightened concerns among the other Five Eyes nations that the bureau is adrift....” No kidding. It doesn't take a professional spy to figure that out. (Also linked yesterday.)
Camilo Montoya-Galvez & Nicole Sganga of CBS News: "The Trump administration has made plans for U.S. Border Patrol official Gregory Bovino and some of his agents to soon leave the Chicago area, three U.S. officials told CBS News Monday.... While the administration has argued the operation was designed to curtail crime and illegal immigration, Border Patrol's actions and presence in Chicago and its suburbs have been strongly decried by local leaders as heavy-handed and unjustified."
Jared McClain of the Institute of Justice in a Washington Post op-ed: Leonardo Garcia Venegas “is Latino and works in construction. Twice since May, masked federal agents have gone onto private sites where he was working and detained him along with every other Latino worker — and only the Latino workers. Both times, officers ignored clear signs that they were intruding on private property without a warrant. Both times, Garcia told the officers that he was an American citizen and showed them his Real ID. Both times, the officers detained him anyway because, they said, they couldn’t be sure his Real ID was real. After video of the first arrest went viral, the Department of Homeland Security claimed that officers arrested Garcia for obstruction because he 'physically got in between agents and the subject they were attempting to arrest and refused to comply with numerous verbal commands.'
“Garcia’s first-person video of the incident shows that is not true. He was about 25 feet away from where law enforcement was detaining someone when an officer tackled him without giving any verbal commands — let alone asking any questions.... Garcia’s experience shows how these raids are unconstitutional.... The Bill of Rights protects people from unreasonable seizures. It’s surely unreasonable for government agents to run onto private property, detain people based on how they look and then reject the very ID that the government has demanded people obtain.” (Also linked yesterday.)
~~~ Marie: This is hardly the first time we've heard of immigration enforcers lying about their arrests, presumably in sworn affidavits. Those who are caught should be fired. And charged with perjury. Immediately. That includes the head of the Chicago ops, Greg Bovino, who admitted lying to a federal judge (after videotape caught him, of course). As a juror, I wouldn't believe a thing one of these federal agents said. The "victim" of the Sandwich Guy said -- at trial, under oath -- that the footlong "'exploded all over him' and he 'could smell the onions and mustard' on his uniform." Video showed that after hitting the agent, the sandwich fell to the pavement, still in its wrapper. Martha Stewart was a private citizen who went to jail for making false statements to federal agents. Why shouldn't federal officials be fired & tried for perjury?
Dasha Burns & Sophia Cai of Politico: “White House officials are furious with Bill Pulte, the Federal Housing Finance Agency director, who talked the president into suggesting a 50-year mortgage plan.... On Saturday evening, Pulte arrived at ... Donald Trump’s Palm Beach Golf Club with a ... graphic of former President Franklin Roosevelt appeared below '30-year mortgage' and one of Trump below '50-year mortgage.' The headline was 'Great American Presidents.' Roughly 10 minutes later, Trump posted the image to Truth Social.... Almost immediately, aides were fielding angry phone calls from those who thought the idea ... was both bad politics and bad policy, a move that could raise housing costs in the long run.... The episode underscores the haphazard ways consequential policies are sometimes brought before the president, and how Trump’s govern-by-whim nature can backfire.”
~~~ Rachel Siegel of the Washington Post: “... Donald Trump’s firebrand housing finance director, Bill Pulte, fired internal watchdogs at the Federal National Mortgage Association who were looking into multiple complaints against a high-ranking company officer close to him.... Pulte said last month he had fired dozens of Fannie Mae employees in what he said included a bid to end diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives at the mortgage giant. Yet six people ... said those firings effectively cleared out the company’s internal watchdogs.... The ethics team — including its chief, Suzanne Libby — was fired shortly after Fannie management directed investigators to cease looking into the Pulte ally.... Other top Fannie officials were also terminated amid broader clashes with Pulte, the people said, including general counsel Danielle McCoy and head of single-family business Malloy Evans.... Earlier this month, Reuters also reported that the internal FHFA watchdog was being removed.... On Monday morning, at least 200 additional Fannie employees were fired, according to two sources....”
Marie: A while back RAS (I think it was) linked a column by Arwa Mahdawi of the Guardian about women & men who spend "enormous sums of money" to acquire identical plastic Mar-a-Lago faces. "People such as Laura Loomer, Kristi Noem, and Matt Gaetz can afford excellent surgeons and subtle cosmetic work but, unless they’ve all had botched procedures, it seems they deliberately chose to look like AI-generated caricatures." ~~~
~~~ Now Mimi Montgomery of Axios reports, "Since January, D.C. plastic surgeons have seen a wave of Trump insiders asking for overt procedures in line with the 'Mar-a-Lago face' look.... Fillers are big with this crew — especially lips, says Pittman, as are Botox and Dysport.... D.C. plastic surgeon Anita Kulkarni has had to turn down an influx of newly arrived political insiders asking for "a more done look, like that Mar-a-Lago face. The aesthetic didn't fit her practice's typical understated vibe, and these people wanted extra fillers and injections on top of already treated faces, which can be dangerous, she says." (Also linked yesterday.)
First, the Good News. Ann Marimow of the New York Times: “The Supreme Court on Monday turned down a request that it consider overturning its landmark decision to legalize same-sex marriage a decade ago. The court, without comment, declined the petition, filed by Kim Davis, a former Kentucky county clerk who gained national attention in 2015 when she defied a court order and refused to issue same-sex licenses because of her religious beliefs.... At least four of the nine justices would have needed to vote to hear Ms. Davis’s case and revisit the marriage precedent, a major step that many legal experts had said they were not expecting the court to take.... Gay Americans and their allies had been on alert since the Supreme Court’s conservative majority eliminated the nationwide right to abortion after 50 years, showing a willingness to undo longstanding legal precedent.” (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~
~~~ Now, the Bad News. Abbie VanSickle of the New York Times: “The Supreme Court said on Monday that it would hear a challenge to Mississippi’s grace period for mail-in ballots, a case that could upend mail-ballot rules in dozens of states, creating chaos ahead of the 2026 elections. The case, Watson v. Republican National Committee, asks the justices to determine the meaning of 'Election Day.' It is a potential blockbuster and adds to the court’s other elections and voting cases for the term, which include a case about who can sue to challenge Illinois’ mail-in ballot rules and a challenge to the Louisiana congressional district map that could gut a remaining pillar of the Voting Rights Act. The Republican National Committee challenged Mississippi’s mail-in ballot rules, arguing that Congress had intended that voting take place on a single Election Day and that allowing ballots to arrive days later and still be counted undermined election integrity and the public’s trust in the vote. Mississippi argued that Congress only set a date by when voters must make their choice, not the date by when ballots must arrive. Mississippi defended its grace period, which is similar to ones in place in many other states....” (Also linked yesterday.)
Uh, Never Mind. Will Sommer of the Bulwark: "EARLY SATURDAY MORNING, the Blaze published the most hyped investigation from a right-wing media outlet in recent memory—an exposé on what it claimed was the likely identity of the January 6th pipe bomber.... Two days later, it seems like that excitement may have been more than a little overcooked. Rather than matching the Blaze’s reporting, rival January 6th reporters on the right are casting doubt on its conclusion. The Justice Department and FBI have stayed notably silent on the claims." Sommer goes on to pretty much tear aapart the whole report. MB: Lesson for me: if a story fits my own prejudices, it just might be bull. Sadly, I'm so hard-headed that I've only half-learned my lesson: I acknowledge that the story is so deeply-flawed as to be useless, BUT I still harbor the prejudice that the would-be pipe bomber may be a woman.
~~~ John Hanc in the New York Times: “It has been a half-century since the [freighter Edmund Fitzgerald] sank on Lake Superior, and a pop single memorialized its fate. Now museums are commemorating those events.”
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28 comments:
Re: Fat Hitler's sneaking in that language allowing fellow conspirators in the Senate to sue the government for being investigated for possible crimes.
So is the injustice Department and the FBI now going to start notifying the subjects of criminal investigations that law enforcement is looking at them for possible violations of the law, or will that just be FOFH, Friends of Fat Hitler? Maybe, in addition to notifying criminals, they should also ask their permission and, just to be on the safe side of MAGA "law", send them a check for half a mill, just in case their fee fees are ruffled.
There is no bottom to the lawlessness of the Trump Reich.
Now he's running to his rubber stamps at the Supine Court to get his convictions of sexual assault and defamation overturned and all records expunged. Maybe he'll demand that SHE PAY HIM.
If Little Johnny and the Dwarfs allow this, I'm leaving the country.
Well, today I'm even more pissed at those apostate senators. Fuck them. I had to listen to that mentally unbalanced prick Fetterman yesterday running down Democrats who dared to piss off the Dear Leader with their "Democrat Shutdown". Dear Fetts: just fuck off and switch parties already. Take your fucking hoodies and your blathering bullshit and get the fuck out.
In other news, Bible Mike, who normally doesn't know shit about anything, sniffed that he's not even sure he'll be able to bring any bill up before the House that would continue ACA subsidies. Oh, and even if this do-nothing congress was able to pass such a continuation of healthcare assistance for millions and millions of Americans, it's likely that Fatty won't sign it. So how's that for your victory, Quisling Eight (stolen from Marie, whose renaming of her own apostate assholes as Quisling and Chamberlain is spot on)? We get NOTHING and give up EVERYTHING. Schumer needs to go. So do all eight of these cowards. They did nothing but give in to the Fat Dictator who is still trying to screw Americans.
Look, the Trump Shutdown is almost over and he's STILL demanding that hungry kids starve. This is absolute pure evil. And plenty of those kids live in pro-Hitler families. But he doesn't care. It's all about vengeance for this piece of shit.
I wonder how it is that MAGA voters can consider this thing that waddles his blubber around the White House any kind of a man. Apart from his policies of revenge and grifting and murder, just how do they think this is a decent person, in any sense? He's a greedy, vicious, ignorant, and increasingly demented asshole who would stiff his own mother if he thought it would bring him both money and pleasure.
Funny how you get something in your head and are surprised later to find that you were way off.
I remember when the Gordon Lightfoot song about the Edmund Fitzgerald came out. It's a good song and he does a great job with it, nicely produced, good arrangement, he even makes use of a Moog synthesizer. But somehow, I had always thought the tragedy had occurred years earlier, perhaps even in the 19th century.
As a kid, I was fascinated by stories of sea rescues and shipwrecks and blew through a dozen books in that vein by the Boston historian Edward Rowe Snow. Most of his tales were set in earlier times, even back in 17th century New England. That background, coupled with the opening lines of the song about legends coming down from the Chippewa made me think the Edmund Fitzgerald met its fate much earlier than the year before the song came out.
Anyhoo, a good song about a terrible tragedy. Maybe someone will write a song one day about the Wreck of the United States, a great country until a fat gangster took over and sank it.
So yesterday Marie posted an item about the weird and scary Mar-a-Lardo Face, a self-mutilating attempt to gain access to the inner circle of Fatty Hell.
Today, Digby's site publishes a some wild images of the MAGA Fascist Barbies who have had their features maimed and carved up to please the Dear Leader.
Crikey! Check out this assortment of ghastly groupies. Like scary dolls come to life in a Twilight Zone episode. They don't even look human. Which, I suppose, is only to be expected, since their leader isn't human either. Ye gods and little fishes! What a collection of ghoulish succubi.
And here's the head ghoul reveling in their complete succumbing to his evil.
Step right up folks, git yer E. coli, Salmonella, and Campylobacter right here, courtesy of Trump idiocy.
The MAGA FDA has become a ghost town due to firings and the general feeling among the MAHA crowd that people should "do their own research". I guess they also mean do their own food inspections as well.
"American inspections of foreign food facilities — which produce everything from crawfish to cookies for the U.S. market — have plummeted to historic lows this year, a ProPublica analysis of federal data shows, even as inspections reveal alarming conditions at some manufacturers.
About two dozen current and former Food and Drug Administration officials blame the pullback on deep staffing cuts under the Trump administration. The stark reduction marks a dramatic shift in oversight at a time when the United States has never been more dependent on foreign food, which accounts for the vast majority of the nation’s seafood and more than half its fresh fruit.
The stakes are high: Foreign products have been increasingly linked to outbreaks of foodborne illness. In recent years, FDA investigators have uncovered disturbing lapses in facilities producing food bound for American supermarkets. In Indonesia, cookie factory workers hauled dough in soiled buckets. In China, seafood processors slid crawfish along cracked, stained conveyor belts. Investigators have reported crawling insects, dripping pipes and fake testing data purporting to show food products were pathogen free.
In 2011, Congress — concerned about the different standards of overseas food operations — gave the FDA new authority to hold foreign food producers to the same safety standards as domestic ones. Although the agency’s small team remained unable to visit every overseas facility, inspections rose sharply after the mandate — sometimes doubling or tripling previous rates.
Now, the U.S. is on track to have the fewest inspections on record since 2011, except during the global pandemic."
Making America throw up again.
He IS as stupid as you think.
"Donald Trump promoted the false claim that Barack Obama has earned $40m in 'royalties linked to Obamacare' in a post to his 11 million followers on Truth Social on Sunday.
The fictional claim that the former US president receives royalty payments for the use of his name to refer to the Affordable Care Act, which he signed into law in 2010, has been repeatedly debunked since at least 2017, when it was featured on America’s Last Line of Defense, a satirical website that produces fake news reports designed to generate engagement from outraged conservatives.
The updated version of the claim shared by Trump on Sunday fooled many of his supporters in February, when it was posted on Facebook by America’s Last Line of Defense, and on the Dunning-Kruger-Times, a satirical site run by the same man, Christopher Blair, the Maine-based 'godfather of fake news'."
Fat Hitler goes on to announce that this awful, terrible, no-good money grabbing grift had been discovered and halted by his brave minions. Too bad it was all a joke.
You might think that, prior to posting such an outrageous claim, a certain bloated moron might, ya know, do a google check, or call one of his flunkies to do it, BUT, you would be sadly mistaken.
He IS as stupid as you've always thought. Nonetheless, you can be sure this bullshit has been making the rounds in the MAGA fever swamps and the MAGAdiots are outraged, OUTRAGED, I tells ya!
Randy Rainbow, on Instagram, sings Big Phony Schmuck
You would think that Fetterman would be at least slightly sympathetic or empathetic to the people having their healthcare premiums skyrocket seeing how his Senate career started with him having a medical emergency and having to navigate our broken system and having to deal with the health insurance industry. But no, that is not an issue that John Fetterman will fight for. Once again he shows the Republican sentiment of "I got mine, screw the rest of you".
So why should the president have all the immunity? Don't his followers deserve some of the immunity pie?
First term Pretender pardons started the rush to eviscerate any remaining respect for the law in our already two-tier justice system. Then the Supines joined in with their presidential immunity decision. The rash of second-term presidential pardons to the Jan. 6 hooligans and dozens of convicted law breakers since only extended the mockery.
Why shouldn't Senators (but what about those Representatives?) complicit in the attempted overthrow of a legitimate election be immune, too?
It's only fair. their sterling reputations suffered great damage.
About that disturbing link to digby and the nightmare faces, do the plastic surgeons who do that work promote that work? When they are showing potential clients their past successes are those faces in their book of satisfied former clientele? And if so, I wonder what percentage of perspective clients think to themselves, why is this doctor showing me all their botched surgeries?
Republican Crime Family
"FBI Informant Who Lied About the Bidens Covertly Released From Jail
Alexander Smirnov pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI and was sentenced to six years in jail.
Alexander Smirnov, the ex–FBI informant who admitted to lying about the Biden-Burisma connection, has been released from prison just months into his six-year prison sentence.
In a plea deal in December 2024, Smirnov admitted to completely fabricating the conspiracy that became central to a Republican effort to impeach then-President Joe Biden. Days later, the Russian asset pleaded guilty to four felony charges, including one count of obstruction, and was sentenced to six years in prison."
Twice as expensive as tariffs
"The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget estimates that President Trump’s plan to provide most Americans $2,000 funded from tariffs would cost roughly $600 billion and, if paid annually, would be twice as expensive as tariffs.
“Current tariffs have raised about $100 billion so far,“ said Matt Klucher, with CRFB, “and will raise about $300 billion per year in the steady state.”"
Ak: Liebowitz said it best.
https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2018/mar/20/fran-lebowitz-you-do-not-know-anyone-as-stupid-as-donald-trump
"Gourmet Italian Pastas to Vanish From Shelves Thanks to Trump
Italy’s largest pasta exporters say they’ll stop selling to the United States as soon as January, after a combined 107 percent in import and antidumping duties made doing business across the Atlantic financially untenable. The move, they warn, could trigger a U.S. pasta shortage just months into the new year.
The U.S. Commerce Department last month announced a 92 percent antidumping duty on Italian-made pasta from La Molisana and a dozen other companies.
That’s on top of the Trump administration’s existing 15 percent tariff on European Union imports—one of the harshest trade penalties imposed on any product under the president’s protectionist push."
The $500k pro-insurrection provision in the bill is them literally forcing the tax payers to pay for their participation in the attempted coup. Republicans already get paid by us to undermine democracy, but they saw Trump setting up his $230 million dollar pay day and decided that they needed to get paid for all the extra work they had to do to try to undermine the Constitution above and beyond their usual lazy work. The idea that we are financing our own democracy's destruction and that the people who attempted it in the first place are still in position to hand themselves money out of our own treasury is bonkers. But that is the good old US of A. Trump is not the only idiot in this country.
On this Veterans Day, I'm still waiting for the Commander in Chief to
recognize us veterans and thank us for our service to the United States,
those of us who didn't have bone spurs that is.
Patrick,
Thanks for the link. Fran is always both smart and entertaining. Anyone else looking for a little injection of both, check out that link.
Westcoastman,
I heard he mumbled some crap at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier this morning, “We love our veterans”. Blah, blah, blah. Of course not enough to actually be one…and certainly not enough to not put a drunken part time TV guy in charge of the Pentagon.
I see the UK has decided not to share intelligence with the Trump Reich regarding suspected drug activity in the Caribbean. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if they, and other former allies have stopped sharing lots of intel with Fat Hitler and that drunken lout at the Pentagon. Neither has demonstrated an ability or inclination to treat sensitive intelligence with the proper attention to safeguarding state and military secrets. Not to mention they have no faith in Fat Hitler’s ability to keep his mouth shut and not to misuse intelligence.
Making America a pariah.
RAS,
Good point about that $500k windfall to traitors. By making his co-conspirators heroes and rewarding them for their treasonous efforts by throwing open the doors to the US Treasury he forces all American taxpayers to be complicit with his traitorous scheme to steal a free and fair election. Not sure why Democrats aren’t making more of this. I guess too many of them are worried about looking too partisan. Gotta make sure those red hatted MAGAts sitting in a diner in West Bumfuck don’t think they’re godless commies. Or something.
How To Lose Well
Digby
"If you listen to podcasts I highly recommend you listen to this one with Greg Sargent and Brain Beutler, two of the best analysts in the business. (You can read a transcript here.) The whole thing is worth listening to but I thought this was particularly insightful:
Beutler: It sounds a little bit contradictory, but there’s strong ways to cave and then there’s weak ways to cave. And what we’ve seen is Democrats say, essentially, we tried to fight Donald Trump and it didn’t work, so we give up. That was Angus King’s line, essentially.
But if they had reached the same decision but from a different posture, it might not have appeared to everyone like surrender, right? If Jeanne Shaheen or Angus King, or ideally just Chuck Schumer, went to the mics and said: We have tried everything we can to make Republicans give you back your health care. They refuse to do so. The only way you’re going to get your health care back is to elect Democrats.
In the meantime, Americans need their government to be working for them. The problem with that is that Donald Trump can’t be trusted with a full-year budget.[...]
Then at least you’re setting the terms—you’re saying, Look, like they are completely irrational about health care and you’re going to pay for it and we’re sorry about that, vote for us next time.
In the meantime, we have to do something about the lawlessness and this is the only way we can do it."
RAS,
Exactly what I was saying yesterday. Democrats can't say "Well, we gave up cuz people need to eat."
That's true, certainly, but it gives the traitors and the Fat Fascist a complete pass.
They have to say "We held out as long as we could but when it became clear that Trump and the Republican Party was happy to let children starve and deprive poor people of their healthcare, just to win political points, we decided to be the adults in the room."
Has anyone said this?
This is how it's done.
A real president who genuinely appreciates the service of veterans, not some blowhard narcissistic fat boy who took the coward's way out then shows up to tick off his personal grievances at ceremonies to honor American veterans. How the MAGAts can't see the difference is a question for psychiatrists.
On the other hand we have...
"Trump’s diss to France, UK and Russia in his Veterans Day speech: ‘We’re the one that won the wars’
Trump’s Veterans Day remarks veered into grievance as he suggested America — not her allies — should be celebrating victories in both world wars"
Just an opinion of a bitterly disappointed old man on this past week, "Kick 'em on Tuesday, kiss 'em on Saturday".
There must be a special place in hell for Dumb Donald: who else do you know that proves with every utterance of his fat lips and nasty crotch tie that he is a POS of the most valued kind. Every word out of his face is guaranteed a lie, or a fabrication, or a braggart's smug words that are wrong, stupid, ignorant, and every other adjective of that sort. I really think of him as a bedbug: unrespected, ugly, full of as much evil as any creature on earth. If he were drowning, I'd sell tickets. If he falls out a window (after all, he IS a Russian asset--)I will rope off a space where he falls, dig a hole and line it with iron spikes and toxic chemicals. If he has a stroke on one of his golf courses we pay for, I say run him over with a cart and if he survives, throw him in whatever local jailhouse there is and deep six the keys. I think he does not deserve to live. I don't know that I have ever genuinely felt this much poison inside me that I would like him gone from the earth. As long as he lives, he is a menace to the country and the world. Regime change, isn't it?
Memo to Marie: if this is too much, I understand. But I don't get how we all pay the price for one person's ego and mania. This is not democracy. It is not.
Jeanne,
Yikes! Iron spikes? Too much money to spend on Fatty. How about a nice trou de loup, the kind used by Caesar. All you need are sharpened wooden stakes in a covered hole. Prob'ly don't need the toxic chemicals with that, unless you think he might survive the stakes.
My suggestion is either fewer cocktails or more. A lot more. I feel the same way, but hey, love the "crotch tie" line. Might have to steal that one. As far as the Russian window roulette idea, I'm gonna go with plutonium in his Diet Coke. It's not as quick as a twentieth floor hotel defenestration, but easier on the sidewalk, and you don't have to worry about innocents being flattened by a load of blubber.
In any event, you are correct. Democracy it ain't.
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